Quote:
Originally Posted by August
Well mainly because my level of trust in my government, or your views on their ability or culpability for that matter, aren't what I was asking about when I made that post. A question BTW that I still haven't seen answered (see below).
Well, actually yes I have plenty of reason to believe this (which is what led me to the question I reference above).
As a former US Army Signalman I once held a Top Secret security clearance and I am quite familiar with the military's methods and procedures for safeguarding classified material. Chains of custody, storage requirements, vetting of personnel, compartmentalization of information, need to know limitations, all of it is very strictly regulated and enforced.
I highly doubt that a civilian news organization. let alone an international one, let alone three of them, will come close to those standards, so i'm betting that any information the media has redacted will be available to our enemies, if not the general public, in short order.
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On the trustworthiness or moral authority of your or my government we will totally disagree forever. The moral authority you see in it and that commands your obedience, to me is non-existent and is already proven to be a source of criminal energy that now abuses it's powers and right to try denying it's repsoinbility for messing it up. Or in other words: those you pay respect and trust to, I have identified as the most dangerous enemies of our people and our freedoms. Not one milligram of trust I give them. As I see it, the good will of soldiers - to serve for their country - gets betrayed and abused by those being in political command. That I say with regard both to the Bundeswehr and the US Army, but also with rgard to the other armies in Aghanistan. And this is a form of treachery like I cannot imagine any bigger. Why you military folks tend to have such a character feature that makes you so very prone to putting more trust into your politicians than they deserve, I probably never will understand. I just can note that I see it in many professional soldiers, no matter their nationality. they usually think of it in terms of obedience, honour or duty. While I recognise the need of discipline and sense of duty, I nevertheless see this big trust into political leaders as something different: as uncritical naivety.
Your question on the competence of an editor I have adressed, btw. By pointing out that it depends on his background and education/experience, and that it was not just on editor, but a whole team of people, and that they were given the documents weeks in advance of wikileak's publication. To add to that, I think it is very well possible that somebody who deals with security issues by profession, for example, or is an analyst in his field of profession, not only may be able to understand such reports and their context as good or even better than a politician or president (who is totally depending on the advisors and lobbyists he is surrounded with), but I even think that the moral authority and character of politicians rates significantly below the mean value of the average population.